Anyone have any hopes or thoughts for the upcoming 2017 tour? 3rd time out now for this one.

I suppose my hopes as always revolve around the second half of the Show and certain songs that I would like to hear, though I thought the set list was pretty darn good last year. They are promising "new awe-inspiring effects and staging" which is sort of expected at this point but I'd be good if they slowed down on the effects.

Of course for the East cast, it will be challenging without Dave Z. He has been replaced before and I'm confident that the new bassist will be just as good musically, but he had so much of the "it factor" that is hard to replace especially knowing that he won't be back.

I've always been very blunt about what I like and don't like about TSO. What I am truly hoping for is that the band will have more freedom in performing. This includes the singers too. Dan in your recent interview with Dino Jelusic even he said they were there simply to tell the story Paul envisioned. Nothing else. Paul scrutinized literally every little detail about each tour. In his absence it would be nice to see if musically and vocally the band has more freedom and can enjoy themselves on stage. It used to be more free in the earlier years of touring but quickly became a cookie cutter sound. I want to hear the heart behind their playing again with no worry about what management might say after any given concert.

For me the second half. Not sure how much longer they'll be able to tour without new material. Maybe now Jon and al are at the helm as far as songwriting goes? I know it's a longshot, but romaovs and passions couldn't have too far off from completion.

I still wish they would bring back the Christmas Eve and Other Stories, but I guess at this point we should just be lucky that they are touring this year at all. Maybe if they continue beyond this year, they will bring it back. I kinda figured that they would be done with new albums. As someone mentioned above, I wouldn't mind a bit of a return to the older TSO style where the singers and musicians had a bit more latitude to make a song their own. Also will keep an eye out for the new bassist.

I'd like to see some different stuff in the second half. And as was said above it would be nice if the performers could have a little more freedom.

I also suspect this will be the last hurrah. Losing David this way is likely to be the last straw. They may try for a couple more years but without Paul to glue it all together I think they'll have a really hard time keeping it going.

NYC hasn't been on their schedule for a long time, but I would've thought that they would head back to Long Island now that the arena is open again and there is no pesky hockey team to schedule around now. As always, Pennsylvania, Texas and Ohio dominate the schedule.

No show in Tulsa or Little Rock. Chesapeake arena in OKC has the worst acoustics I think I've ever heard. Now, I have to think about whether I want to make that drive to see a show I've seen twice that will sound like crap.